When Sherlock Was: Age 3
by MedicOnDuty
Summary: When Sherlock was three years old, he thought that his brother Mycroft, who was ten, was the most fascinating and intelligent person in the world. To be fair, he didn't really have a lot of people to compare him to. First in a series of little vignettes about Sherlock growing up.


When Sherlock was three years old, he was a chubby toddler with a mop of unruly black curls that couldn't be tamed into any sort of acceptable style, no matter how hard his nanny tried in the morning. He had already mastered a great deal of vocabulary, but, thankfully for everyone involved, chose to quietly observe things and draw his own conclusions instead of bombarding the adults around him with the question "why" like other children his age did. Instead, he chose to bombard the adults around him with his stories and observations, noticing rarely that nobody was listening. Sherlock's nanny had long mastered the art of nodding and yes-ing in all the right places to keep young Sherlock entertained as he prattled on, while she flipped through the pages of whatever book she was reading. Sherlock noted that all of her many paperbacks featured shirtless men and swooning maidens on the cover.

Sherlock thought that his brother, Mycroft, was the most fascinating and intelligent person on the planet, or at least the most fascinating and intelligent of all the people he knew. Mycroft readily agreed. (He thought the same about himself.) In little Sherlock's defense, he had little to compare Mycroft to. The two boys were being raised in the Holmes family's old manor house, which was a half hour's drive from the nearest town and surrounded by manicured gardens and well-tended fields and woods. The people the boys knew were the staff their parents employed: maids and nannies, cooks and drivers, groundskeepers and caretakers. Hardly the sort of people the boys would have compared themselves to or attempted to befriend. But, of course, Sherlock's fascination with his brother also had its roots in the fact that Mycroft was seven years older, which was as good as being a grown-up to little Sherlock. Mycroft also was in year five at a school where students wore uniforms that consisted of neat gray slacks, white shirts, and dark blue jumpers with an embroidered crest. Little Sherlock didn't know what the big to-do about school uniforms was, but he knew that having a school uniform was reserved for brilliant older brothers, which made him just a little jealous but also very proud of Mycroft.

Each day, Sherlock would eagerly sit on the big cushions in the window sill of his nursery, from which he could see the driveway in front of the manor, and wait for the car that took Mycroft home from school to pull up. Sherlock would hold his breath and listen intently to hear his brother's footsteps running up the stairs and down the hallway to his own room, then he'd take one of his toys and run to Mycroft's room to invite his brother to play with him. He knew, of course, that he couldn't just barge in and ask his brother to play; he needed to wait until Mycroft had finished his homework. So Sherlock would sit in the doorway and play with his toys by himself until his brother was done.

Mycroft was a diligent student who spent a great deal of time completing his homework and reading ahead for the next class. Although it took very little effort for him to bring home straight A's and be at the top of all his classes, he always took on extra work even without the promise of extra credit, and he took great pleasure in learning. He also insisted on having everything just right: his notes had to be impeccable, his notebooks without dog ears and wrinkles. He did his homework at a large mahogany desk that had belonged to the boys' grandfather and that their father had given to Mycroft as a gift when he'd started school, with a mention that he would "grow into it." Young Mycroft had taken this to mean that he needed to become important enough to rate such a fine desk, rather than the more obvious matter of size, and applied himself to make that happen.

When Mycroft finished his homework, he would close his notebook, which was little Sherlock's clue that he was now allowed in the room to invite his brother to play with him. He'd walk up to the desk and push his toy over the edge – he could barely reach that high – and he'd say loudly, "MY-COFF! Play!" He couldn't quite pronounce his brother's name, but knew that any attempt he made at pronouncing the whole thing was better than calling him Mike (Mycroft hated that). Then Mycroft would usually take the toy and the two brothers would spend some time playing together before dinner.

For all his growing observation skills, little Sherlock didn't yet realize that his brother didn't exactly share his enthusiasm about their time spent together. Mycroft, after all, was seven years older, and he viewed his baby brother as little more than an annoyance and an obligation. On a good day, when school had been pleasant and his homework was done, Sherlock was a nuisance that was to be tolerated. On a bad day, when Mycroft had been teased by other kids at school for being a "brain" (he still didn't understand why this was a bad thing), Sherlock was an annoyance to be ignored. Occasionally, when he just didn't want to deal with him at all, Mycroft would push his little brother into the hallway and shut the door, knowing Sherlock could not yet reach the high door handle. And Mycroft hated how dull his brother could be, that he just didn't take the clues he was not welcome and that his dirty toys did not belong onto the desk where they wrinkled notebook corners and smeared fresh ink.

One afternoon in spring, Mycroft had almost finished his math homework and was stretching in his chair, which Sherlock took as his cue to come into the room for play time. Sherlock was carrying his favorite toy, a plush dog, and eagerly toddled his way over to Mycroft's desk. He could barely reach the surface of the desk, but he stood on his tippy toes, extended his arms all the way, and pushed the dog onto the top of the desk, letting out a great, satisfied, "MY-COFF! PLAY!" as he did it.

Sherlock hadn't meant to hit the glass of orange juice that sat, half-full, at the corner of the desk above Mycroft's notebook, but by the time he heard the clinking of the glass, it was too late. The orange juice had run across Mycroft's notebook, causing the fresh ink to run, then down the desk, and started dripping over the edge onto Mycroft's school trousers and the rug. Sherlock was stunned by what had happened. Mycroft was furious. He tore the doll away from his baby brother, chucked it out the open window, and punched his baby brother straight in the face.

Sherlock found himself sitting on the rug, half stunned, blood spurting out of both nostrils, and tears filling his big blue eyes. He let out a piercing shriek because there was red liquid coming from his face (and he didn't understand what it was) and ran from the room, wailing at the top of his lungs as he went, while the nanny came running from his nursery in a panic.

Mycroft shut and locked his door, got a fresh notebook, and neatly re-did all of the math homework that his baby brother had ruined. Of course, he knew that he had a stern lecture coming to him from their father, but he was confident that he could explain what had happened and that father would agree his reaction had been reasonable once he saw the ruined notebook. (He turned out to be quite wrong on that assumption.) From that day on, however, Mycroft simply shut his bedroom door when he got home so that Sherlock couldn't bother him anymore. When Sherlock got old enough to open the door, he simply locked it. Eventually, his baby brother left him in peace.

For little Sherlock, this had been the first time in his life he didn't understand.


End file.
